With the permission of the House, I would like to share my time with my colleague, Deputy Theresa Ahearn.
Private Members' Business. - Education Grants: Motion.
Is that satisfactory? Agreed.
I move:
That Dáil Éireann, in the light of repeated delays in processing of payments of higher education and ESF grants, calls on the Minister for Education to
—instruct all local authorities and vocational educational committees to pay outstanding grants immediately; and
—issue the necessary sanction to all local authorities and vocational education committees to make grant application forms available to applicants in the month of April so that, in the future, processing can be completed and first payments made to all qualifying students on their commencing college.
The subject of higher education grants has been a long, unresolved and festering sore. Over the past two years I, as Fine Gael spokesperson on Education, and my colleagues have repeatedly tried to highlight the injustices of the different aspects of the higher education grant scheme and to impress on this Minister over the past year and on her predecessors over the previous two years the need to inject some element of equity and fair play into a system which is flagrantly flawed and savagely anti the PAYE worker. Not alone did the previous Government turn a deaf ear to our pleadings, but it proceeded to turn mercilessly on the last refuge left to the PAYE taxpayer when it decided to means test European Social Fund grants, thus introducing into the ESF grants scheme the same biased discredited criteria which have acted so blatantly against middle income families for so long.
We in this House have tried to remind the partners in this partnership Government of their election commitments to the people of Ireland just over 12 months ago. The Labour Party, with its shining new agenda, promised higher education grants based on net rather than gross incomes. The electorate voted for this. Shortly after taking up office, the Minister for Education, at one of her first Question Time, informed the House that this was not a practical proposition. This is yet another broken promise. Fianna Fáil, never ones to be outdone when it comes to throwing around taxpayers' money at election time, promised full free third level education. Of course, that promise will not be delivered upon either.
This entire issue has been dispatched to a special advisory group announced by the Minister for Education on 5 April 1993. After eight months of deliberations the members of the group continue to gaze wistfully at the most glaringly obvious and conclusive set of facts one could set one's eyes on anywhere. However, we still await their conclusions, not to mention their solutions. Fine Gael has tried to entice the Government to introduce a tax free allowance for the hardpressed parents of children who do not qualify for grants. It would even be prepared to accept this as an interim measure as the nation waits with bated breath for the recommendations which will emerge from the special advisory group. Again, this proposal was voted down in the House before the summer recess.
The constant theme running through all of the Government's responses and rejections is that changes would cost too much. The proposals put forward by Fine Gael tonight cannot be refused on the basis that they would cost too much. The fact is that they would cost absolutely nothing extra but rather could save money and would certainly save thousands of students from the breadline existence many of them have to endure for most of the first term of their first year in college.
In 1993, 63,000 students sat the leaving certificate examination, approximately 55,000 of whom applied to the CAO-CAS office for college places. Their applications had to be submitted before the end of last January. Yet it was August, seven months later, before the county councils and corporation were permitted to issue the higher education grant forms and, as happened in so many cases, it was December, almost 12 months later, before some of the grants were paid. This motion has been drafted for some time. The first part of the motion insists that all the grants should be paid immediately, by Christmas. One would have thought that even in the most complex of cases this would have been done by now. However, by sheer chance, last night in Ballina I met the parent of a student, all of whose brothers and sisters had qualified for higher education grants, whose case was relatively straightforward. Yet the first instalment of this student's grant only arrived last Wednesday, 8 December. This has been the experience of many students.
College students begin a new phase of the education in September. Yet the higher education grant application forms only become available a month beforehand, in early August, and do not have to be returned before the end of August. This year saw the introduction of the new all purpose yellow pack grant scheme, the so-called computer friendly higher education grants scheme for 1993-94. This pack contains three documents. The first document entitled "Application Form 1993-1944 Notes" contains 11 pages of concentrated information. The second document entitled "Higher Education Grant Scheme 1993-1994" contains 16 pages of concentrated information. Last but not least, the third document entitled "Application Form 1993-1994" comprises 12 pages of ticks, boxes, Xs, options and choices. On page 12 of the document there is a check list of 42 items of possible supporting documentation which may be required and supplied by the student in order to qualify for a grant.
I cannot understand the convoluted mind which thought up such a complex system on top of a system which was already complex enough. The scheme is an absolute jungle of red tape, not simply for the applicants and their families who have to try to wade through the "do's" and the "don't's" but also for the staffs of the various local authorities who are suddenly swamped with a monsoon of application forms, some of which are inadequately filled in, some of which are very wrongly filled in and some which are poorly filled in. Apart altogether from the volume of applications, it is obvious from the complexity of the scheme that the processing of these applications will take a very long time.
In this motion Fine Gael is asking that the timetables for issuing the application forms and instructions and for processing the grants be brought forward. It is quite simple to do this. As I said earlier, students apply for college places in January and by the end of January all the applications for places in universities, teacher training colleges, regional technical colleges and the Dublin Institute of Technology colleges will have been submitted to the CAO-CAS office in Galway. Shortly after 31 March the PAYE parents of these students who are lucky enough to find themselves below the magical qualifying threshold for a grant are issued with the P60s. The parents in other earning capacities will also have their documentation relating to their tax affairs for the previous year, and hopefully these will have been finalised. Parents on social welfare can get a full statement from the Department of Social Welfare on request or, as happens in many cases, from the local employment exchange. These are the two most important requirements for the processing of the grants — the application to the CAO-CAS office for a college course and the income details of the parents or guardians.
The missing part of the jigsaw is the elusive application form and the actual details of the scheme. If the forms were issued in April each year the county council and corporation officials could commence processing them immediately. It is recognised also that for some reason administrative staffs of councils have fewer administrative duties in the middle months of the year. The staffs, therefore, would have a full five months available to them to carry out this work and any inaccuracies could be corrected. Additional time and money should be spent writing to applicants of hastily and badly written forms in order to establish the accuracy of the information provided on them. If adequate time was allowed for the completion of the forms it would eliminate many of the inaccuracies. Having consulted with five local authorities I believe it would also eliminate and save the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds in overtime payments for the six weeks concentrated processing of the deluge of application forms.
If the forms become available in April applicants will have access to advice from school authorities, the majority of whom are not available in August due to the holiday, but who are readily available and easily accessible in April, May and June because the schools are still open.
Any local authority will hold — and I have been a member of one since 1979 — that the major question mark in relation to eligibility is the financial eligibility of the candidate's parents. In regard to academic requirements, the position could not be more straightforward. If a person obtains two honours in the leaving certificate examination he or she qualifies for a higher education grant, a vocational education committee grant or an ESF grant but if people do not obtain two honours, they simply do not qualify.
On page 8 of the document "Application Form 1993-94", section 25 is headed "Very Important". That is an important document. The "Final Course Acceptance Schedule" is the application that must be sent back to the local authority as soon as confirmation has been received that one has been given one's final choice. It is on the point of entry to third level that this document is sent back to the local authority, be it the vocational education committee or the country council. This is an important document also because it indicates to the local authority the institution and the course that one hopes to attend for the next three to four years. Therefore, in order to finalise the administrative change that Fine Gael is seeking in this motion, all that one needs to do is to attach one's leaving certificate results for the relevant year to the form and forward it to the vocational education committee or the local authority. Following a simple perusal of the form, which should only take a matter of minutes, there is no reason why approval for the grant cannot be given immediately.
It is important to spell out in detail the financial reality for a person starting college in September. Let us consider the upfront costs facing a student who entered University College, Dublin, last September. The CAO application costs £17, the advance deposit to book college accommodation costs £160, the deposit to secure CAO place costs £889, the advance payment to secure college accommodation — I refer to campus accommodation - costs £550 and the NUI matriculation fee costs £70. That is a grand total of £1,686 before a book, an item of clothing or any food is bought. That £1,686 must be found before one can even enter the door of the college for one's first lecture. For the student who is not in a financial position to contemplate campus accommodation there is the dreaded trudge through the world of flatland to seek the cheapest possible accommodation in that area. Finally, having managed to secure a flat or a bedsit the average student must still come up with the £17 for the CAO application, £889 to secure the CAO place, £70 for the NUI matriculation fees and £300 — that is a conservative annual average-rent advance for a flat or a bedsit. The total in this case is somewhat more modest but it is a fairly prohibitive £1,276.
I put it to the Minister that for any average middle income family, £1,276, before providing for food, books, clothing or travel, is a huge financial imposition. For most students it means quite simply obtaining a bank loan of approximately £3,000 which must be renewed on a recurring basis. I met the mother of a student yesterday who told me that she only received her grant on 8 December. Students are expected to start college life on a bank overdaft and we can rest assured that they will complete college life on an even larger bank overdraft. What a way to start college life.
This is not a hyped up argument for political purposes. These are the actual validated figures published by the student unions and verified by student welfare officers. The same welfare officers have reported a dramatic rise in poverty among students this year and last year. It is evident from the welfare officers' reports and from validated statistics that many students have to struggle to survive in college and make ends meet. Welfare officers also point to the fact that this struggle is affecting the health of many students. There is considerable evidence also that the academic performance of students is being adversely affected. There is growing evidence of students dropping out of college because they have simply given up the struggle. Having to wait weeks for the first instalment of the grant to arrive means, in many cases, that lunch comprises of a glass of water and a slice of bread. College societies, for example, report a drop in membership reflecting not only a lack of finance but also a drop in morale. Students who are required to fork out £1,686 or £1,200, in addition to clothing and feeding themselves in anticipation of a grant arriving, are finding it an impossible financial burden. There is a genuine hardship for the large percentage of students waiting for their grants and, of course, for the new poor who do not qualify for any grants and whose parents' incomes are tantalisingly outside the income qualifying thresholds. However, that is a matter for another day.
It is now estimated that the conservative student loan figure is approximately £20 million. Even allowing for the recently reduced bank interest rates, bank borrowing for students continues to be extremely prohibitive. In spite of all the rhetoric and platitudes about the value placed on education, about the wealth of the nation being its young people and the need for concentration on human resources, the banks have never made the required gesture of a reduced interest rate for students. At a time when banks continue to report huge annual increases in profits, surely it is possible for banks to introduce across the board special low interest — approximately 5 per cent — student loan schemes. The banks would still make a profit, admittedly a small, reduced profit on each loan. When divided across the different banking institutions, the individual amount would be relativley small but its impact, in terms of providing ease of access to education, would be enormous. Yet time and time again, apart from tokenism and platitudes on the part of high profile sponsors at various events or competitions, the banks have singularly failed to perceive that they have any social obligations whatever and indeed repeatedly have turned their backs on any properly structured preferential interest rates scheme for students. Thus the hardship and frustration continues.
One of the traditional financial cushions for students had been the summer jobs market, which saved many a student and enabled them to keep body and soul together. That is virtually nonexistent now because of the recession. The botched student work scheme, which was to replace eligibility for student dole, showed a lack of Government awareness and sensitivity to the plight of students. It was a total fiasco. There is a boiling, seething anger among students that a Labour Party, in a partnership Government, did not murmur a syllable of dissent when the scheme was introduced but jogged merrily along with the decision — as they have done in so many other policy areas — which has confounded so many of their erstwhile supporters.
Jobs overseas, traditionally a major source of income supplement for students, particularly to insulate them from the financial duress of the first few months in college, have dried up. For those who had no option but to venture abroad this year because of the summer dole restrictions, it was a case of borrowing in order to go abroad and again borrowing, or sending for money, to return home. The economies of most of the former traditional student-employing countries simply are not in a position to oblige us any more.
I exhort the Minister to accept this motion. At least if the grants came on stream early, in the second, third or fourth week of September, two or three weeks after students had entered college, it would ease their problems considerably in that they could plan, project and budget. There should be no mystery about it. The whole thing is elementary. If one is entitled to a grant, one is entitled to know one's entitlement in time. One is entitled to be paid on time and not late, as has happened year after year since the scheme was introduced. One is entitled to receive a grant on the spot, not in dribs and drabs, with a student from one county looking enviously at his lecture hall neighbour from an adjoining county whose cheque arrived three or four weeks ago while his remains stuck at the end of this very long pipeline.
The only way of ensuring that grants will be paid on time is to ensure that they are approved in time. That can only happen if the process of approval begins on time and if the application forms are issued and returned in time. I have already shown quite clearly how that can be done.
The classic "out" for a Minister when urged to introduce a change is to defer any decision until some advisory committee or group carry out the usual comprehensive examination of the entire issue or scheme. The advisory group the Minister established on higher education grants has been in place for the past five months. I am sure their findings will be worth while whenever they arrive — at least we have been assured they will be.
Next month the application forms for college places will flood into the Galway CAO/CAS office. If the simple procedure to streamline the early issue and processing of applications for 1994 is to become operable, then it has got to be put in place now. The forms will have to be prepared in time and got ready for processing, with the minor amendments or modifications being put in place. The relevant local authorities would need to be notified also that the process is being rolled back from August to April. It is a move that is eminently possible and would be very worthwhile. If the Minister did this she would have the gratitude of the student population. Certainly it would eliminate, at least in part, some of their tortuous financial experiences.
When the Minister's advisory group reports let them adopt this change as an integral part of any overhaul or reform of the scheme. I urge the Minister not to halt the process simply because it is somebody else's idea. I ask her not to condemn the class of 1994 to the same dismal fate of drudgery and delays as was the lot of the class of 1993, 1992, 1991 and 1990.
The motion before the House this evening is concerned with a very controversial element of the third-level grants system. I refer, of course, to the unacceptable and appalling delay in the payment of grants by many local authorities and vocational education committees. I hope the Minister clearly understands this causes extreme hardship and stress to students and anxiety and despair on the part of their parents.
The motion confronts the Minister with a major challenge, one I had hoped she would accept with enthusiasm, displaying a caring, considerate attitude. However, my hopes have been dashed by what I would regard as a useless amendment tabled by the Minister which does nothing but commend what has been done while failing to refer in any way to the issues raised by our motion. It takes an extraordinary degree of harshness to blatantly ignore the terrible dilemma in which students find themselves because their higher education grants remain unpaid. It shows a further extraordinary degree of dismissiveness to discard positive and helpful proposals that would result in the more efficient administration of that higher education grants scheme.
Sadly, this evening's debate will bring cold comfort to the numerous students, helpless in their misery, who are innocent victims of a poorly organised administrative system. This could be very easily corrected if only the will and interest to do so obtained.
I am proud to say that no party has shown greater consistency or determination to improve the entire scheme of higher education grants than the Fine Gael Party. I am satisfied that our persistence coerced the Government to deal with a few of the many inequities within the system, by increasing the threshold limits but not the level we had requested, by giving recognition to additional family members in college and by the extension of grants to mature students. Unfortunately, discrimination against PAYE workers and their families continues and the exclusion of modest income families from third-level grants has not ended. While accepting that some improvements have been effected, they have not been nearly enough. The entire scheme is in need of total overhaul.
I urge the Minister to address seriously the issues we raise. We are all aware that there is a major difference in the timing of grant payments by various local authorities. This is a very serious problem for students, many of whom are forced to begin their college careers on a bank draft and must take out extensive loans to survive in those first crucial weeks. This practice is unacceptable and must end. Students cannot afford to wait for grants, the vast majority having no resources or harbour to which to return in those first weeks. In exceptional cases, the pressures caused by money shortage have resulted in some students taking the very unfortunate decision to leave third level education and others suffering severe physical and mental stress.
It is all too easy to blame the relevant local authorities and vocational education committees, but we must remember that they are tied to the system within which they are obliged to operate. I want the Minister to explain to the House why her Department does not refund local authorities higher education grants until January when such payments are due in October. This causes severe financial difficulties for all grant-awarding authorities. For example, in South Tipperary the financial outlay in higher education grants is £1.3 million, paid in three instalments. In order to meet this outlay the local authority has to increase its overdraft so that students can be paid during their first term. If local authorities delayed payment until funds were made available by the Department of Education, students would not receive their grants until January. This is an appalling situation and the Minister must accept responsibility for a major delay in grant payments. This is the most important element.
In South Tipperary the cost of the overdraft to meet grant payments was £100,000 in interest, as shown in the estimates for 1993. In other words, the Minister's Department is starving South Tipperary County Council of over £100,000 because it fails to make finance available to the county council to pay the grants in the first term of college. This is a financial loss that local authorities cannot afford. All over the country many local authorities have to make cutbacks to enable them to pay out grants for the first term. I take this opportunity to congratulate the local authorities who do not withhold grant payment because of cash shortage. This situation is ridiculous and one which the Minister's Department must address. The Minister cannot expect the local authorities to pay her bills — at an enormous cost to themselves. In addition, the local authorities pay maintenance grants in the last term. This comes to approximately £400,000 in South Tipperary and is not refunded until the following January.
The Department of Education should pay the local authorities in three phases to meet payment without incurring interest charges. The local authorities should be able to make those payments without incurring such expense. Bearing in mind that there is no funding for the administration of the grant system by the Department of Education, surely it is not much to expect the Minister to pay her bills to the people who operate the system free of charge. I hope the Minister will bear this point in mind, which is fresh in my mind following the recent discussion on our estimates in South Tipperary.
It is incredible that the application forms and all details in relation to the scheme are not made available until mid-August. As Deputy Higgins has said, there is simply no explanation, no logic, no justification for operating the scheme in this manner. I can accept that, perhaps due to constraints, the Minister is unable to deal with the issue in 1993, her first year in office, but I will accept no reason that it cannot be changed for 1994. This is the kernel of the entire problem. Because of the late availability of application forms there is little time for applicants to apply, little time for parents to prepare accounts, which, in turn, imposes enormous pressure on council staff to expedite the processing of grant applications.
There is no reason whatsoever for this confusion and pressure. There is no reason details of the grant scheme could not be made available in April and allow the processing of applications throughout the summer months. Unfortunately, under the present system the joy of getting a place in college is soon quelled by the trepidation and fear of the grant application. All of us being human, we must accept that the time following the leaving certificate results is a time of enormous pressure for parents and students, with some students waiting to find if they have been successful in obtaining a third level place, others waiting to have their papers re-checked and still others who have to wait until final places are allocated. This is no time for dealing with grant applications and due to so much pressure many applicants find it difficult to cope with all the requests for additional information. I hope the Minister will address this problem for the 1994 scheme and accommodate both applicants and local authorities by making all the information available in early spring. I am confident that this will result in faster decisions and speedier grant payment.
Unfortunately, I must also address several additional difficulties with the system that need urgent attention. I believe that accounts submitted for income tax purposes should be acceptable for assessment for eligibility for higher education grants. It is confusing, to say the least, that capital allowances are allowed for income tax assessment but not for higher education grants. Purchase of land and property is allowed for income tax assessment but not for higher education grants. This leads to a cumbersome system, requiring people to spend extra money in order to produce two sets of accounts. It imposes an additional expense on the self-employed. There is a strong argument for simplifying the entire system, which would make the processing of grant applications more efficient, and students would not then have to suffer the effects of a cumbersome assessment system.
Like Deputy Jim Higgins, I believe the decision by Deputy Noel Davern, while Minister for Education, to means test ESF grants has added to the inefficiencies of the system. That decision was negative, short-sighted and extremely unjust. It makes no social, educational or economic sense. As a result we now have two grant awarding authorities dealing with numerous applications and causing further confusion. Many applicants do not know to which authority they should apply. Many apply to both and parents in some cases have to produce two sets of accounts if they have children applying to each authority. This can be described as nothing other than crazy and totally cumbersome. We should have just one grant awarding authority to deal with applicants for all colleges. This would be more efficient, more effective and more consumer friendly. Just as all applications for college places have been centralised, it would now be a major step forward to amalgamate the local authority and the vocational education committee into one authority to deal with all grant applications. In the interests of the applicant, of the parents and of a more effective administrative system, I urge the Minister to consider this proposal very seriously.
When discussing this subject we must not forget we are speaking on behalf of students, for their benefit and wellbeing. Their future depends on our decisions. For that reason I totally reject the Minister's amendment, which ignores the many difficulties that students face. We must accept that their task is more difficult than ours. Surely, we must be prepared to give them a fair and equitable chance of a worth-while future. For their sake I had hoped the Minister would be prepared to accept the proposals put forward here this evening.
The Minister must accept that the system is unfair, unjust and inequitable. The eligibility limits are based on gross income, which is totally irrelevant; rather they should be based on net income. The thresholds are still too low. Thousands of lower middle income and middle income families are still automatically debarred because the bulk of their income is upfront. We must still accept that teachers, gardaí, nurses and the vast bulk of civil servants are wasting their time applying for a third level grant because they simply will not qualify. For those students who are successful with their grant application it is still a struggle caused by the delay in assessment and the delay in grant payment.
I urge the Minister to have the commonsense to tackle the issues we have raised this evening. If so, she will succeed in giving some peace and assurance to the many students who, unfortunately, have been forced to face dinner time without a dinner, forced to register without the fee and forced to face a bank manager without resources. The Minister will be taking a very positive step — one in the interests of students and parents which would have been taken long before now — if she addresses the issues we have put forward this evening.
If permissible, I wish to share my time with Deputy Joe Costello and Deputy Broughan.
I am sure that is satisfactory and agreed.
I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:
"Dáil Éireann notes
—the improvements and extension of the Higher Education Grant Schemes,
—the increased number of students who are now eligible for the various grants schemes and
—the increased volume of activity in this area
and compliments the Minister for Education on the setting up of an expert advisory group to examine, among other matters, the administration of the grants schemes".
I am happy to speak on this motion as it affords me an opportunity to review the development of the higher education grants scheme and of the third level student support system generally. I also wish to outline current developments in this area referring in particular to arrangements for the organisation and delivery of the system. In the 1992-93 academic year nearly 46,000 students were in receipt of awards under the various student grants and scholarships schemes, compared to just over 12,000 students ten years ago. Overall, in the third level area, well over half the total enrolment of 80,000 students in 1992-93 were in receipt of student support compared with a quarter of all students in 1982-83.
Total student support for fees and maintenance provided by the State in 1993 is about £84 million an increase of £9 million or 12 per cent on the 1992 figure. The higher education grants scheme was introduced in 1968 — exactly 25 years ago — following the enactment of the Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants) Act, 1968. As Members of this House are aware, the administration of the higher education grants scheme is entrusted under statute to the local authorities. Each year my Department prepares and issues a specimen scheme for the guidance of the local authorities; it also recoups them their expenditure in respect of grants awarded under the scheme. Each local authority prepares a new scheme for each year and, under the existing legislation, this has to be submitted to the Minister for Education for approval. It is generally acknowledged that a highly complex scheme has evolved over the years. This complexity arose from developments in third level education, social changes, and related improvements and amendments to the scheme. As things stand, there are three different third level student grants schemes in operation. I shall return to this aspect of the matter but, first, I would like to outline briefly a number of the key changes made in the higher education grants scheme since its introduction in 1968.
In 1972-73, grants were divided into separate fee and maintenance elements for the first time. In 1973-74, four grade Cs in any four subjects of the leaving certificate examination were accepted, in place of in four matriculation subjects as had been the case. In 1974-75, grants under the higher education grants scheme became tenable at the regional technical colleges for the first time. In 1978, the Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants) Act, 1978, was enacted. This amending Act enabled a broader range of courses to be recognised for grants purposes. The means test income limits and fee maintenance grants were periodically revised. In 1982-83, the poor law valuation system was found to be unconstitutional. New means testing arrangements were introduced for farmers and the self-employed generally. In 1983-84, a new provision was introduced whereby courses in Northern Ireland were recognised. In 1985-86, tapering of lecture fee grants was introduced as a result of more gradual tapering of eligibility limits. Until the 1985 scheme there was no provision for awarding less than the full fee. Grants also became tenable in colleges of education. In 1990-91, the requirement for grants for four higher level leaving certificate grade Cs was reduced to two.
Before I go on to talk about the improvements which were implemented in 1992 and in 1993, I wish to refer briefly to the other two elements of the third level student support system as it exists, elements which have evolved over a considerable time. I am referring to the vocational education committee scholarship scheme and to the European Social Fund training grants scheme. The vocational education committee scholarship scheme was establised in 1971 to provide assistance to students following courses at certificate or diploma level in the regional technical colleges.
Until 1981 vocational education committees scholarships were awarded on a competitive basis and subject to meeting the requirements of the means test. In 1981 the conditions were changed to provide that vocational education committee scholarships would be awarded to those who achieved specified minimum results in the leaving certificate — five grade Ds or higher on ordinary papers — and who also satisfied the requirements of the means test. The number of vocational education committee scholarship holders in 1981 was 3,394.
Because an increasing number of scholarship holders were going on to further education beyond diploma level, the scholarship scheme was gradually expanded to cover courses in other institutions. In 1983 the minimum academic requirements were raised to two grade Cs on higher paper plus three grade Ds on ordinary papers. Grade A on an ordinary paper may be accepted in lieu of the grade C in a higher level paper.
In recent years the number of scholarship holders has dropped due to the expansion of the European Social Fund scheme. In 1992-93 the number of scholarship holders was approximately 1,800. The vocational education committee scholarship scheme now covers courses in a variety of insitutions, in addition to the regional technical colleges and the Dublin Institute of Technology.
When I examined this scheme after becoming Minister for Education, I must say I was struck by the extent to which many of the courses now covered are also covered under the higher education grants scheme, and that this pointed to the need for rationalisation. European Social Fund training grants scheme commenced in the mid-70s.
The essential purpose of the European Social Fund is to assist in the solution of employment problems, basically by helping to provide skills for the benefit of those who would not otherwise be able to obtain good and stable employment. Certain vocationally orientated courses in the education sector qualify for assistance under the terms of the fund. The scheme covers the vast bulk of national certificate and national diploma courses in the regional technical colleges and the Dublin Institute of Technology. For training purposes, those courses are grouped into two distinct programmes. Since 1992 the ESF maintenance grants scheme for those pursuing national certificate and national diploma courses has been means tested and the scheme istelf is administered by the vocational education committees.
I shall now return to the major improvements which were implemented in the student grants area in 1992 and 1993. A further package of major improvements in the higher education grants scheme and related student support schemes was implemented in 1992.
The assisting of mature students to return to formal education has been identified as a key policy objective in both the Programme for Economic and Social Progress and the education green paper. As a result of the enactment of the Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants) Act, 1992, two special provisions for mature students were put in place in the student grant schemes from 1992 onwards. Mature students who secure a place in third level institutions are automatically considered to meet the academic requirements for the award of grants. Mature students are now means tested for grants by reference to their own incomes (and, if applicable, their spouses' incomes) rather than on their parents' income which had previously been the case.
Over 800 mature students were awarded grants under the 1992 higher education grants scheme and the 1992 vocational education committee scholarship scheme. The 1992 Act also enables us to accept other school terminal examinations in place of the leaving certificate examination. This relates to school leavers going on to third level education and is mainly directed towards the relatively small number of Irish nationals residing in Border areas and attending second level schools in Northern Ireland. It also enables us to consider cases involving school terminal examinations which were sat outside Ireland and a number of such cases are currently under examination in my Department.
The principal improvement in 1992, and the one which was most widely welcomed as it affected the biggest number of people, was the substantial increase in income eligibility limits — an increase of 40 per cent. Other improvements which were introduced in the 1992 schemes and contained in 1993 were: the income limit for families is increased by £2,000 for each additional child after the first child attending third level education; income is now assessed for the year in which the student actually enters third level and by reference to the income limits for that year. This is a significant improvement because the family income is now assessed at the time the student is entering third level; lone parents welfare payments and the lone parents allowance scheme are now excluded from the assessment of income; in 1992 tuition fee grants were increased in line with increases in third level fees; in order to further strengthen the equity and fairness of the income assessment process the Revenue Commissioners are, since 1992, involved in the process of income verification.
In 1993 I maintained the process of improving and reforming the third level student support systems. Income limits were increased by 3.4 per cent in line with the average increase in industrial wages. The maximum tuition fee grant limit for courses covered under the higher education grants scheme and vocational education committee scholarships scheme was increased to £2,200 for the 1993-94 academic year. This has ensured that a number of courses which were not fully covered in 1992 are fully covered under the 1993 schemes. In response to representations from various sources, the sworn declaration in the application form may be witnessed either by a commissioner for oaths or a peace commissioner. Prior to this only a commissioner for oaths was acceptable.
The awarding bodies have discretion, for the first time in 1993, to renew grants and scholarships for repeat years, in exceptional circumstances, in cases of certified serious illness. This is an issue which a number of Deputies had raised in individual cases. The terms of the 1993 higher education grants scheme and vocational education committee scholarships scheme which apply to students progressing for the first time from ESF-aided certificate and diploma courses to approved courses for the purposes of those two schemes have been simplified and improved. Payment of grant/scholarship is not now subject to students obtaining an exemption in the courses to which they are now progressing. This caused considerable hardship in some cases where the student was required to fund any period of attendance for which an exemption was not given by the third level institution. This problem had been raised frequently with me in representations.
Under the 1993 schemes students progressing from ESF-aided courses are eligible for grant assistance from whatever year they commence their degree course provided they are otherwise eligible in accordance with the terms of the scheme.
My Department carried out a thorough review of all the relevant scheme documentation. The schemes were redrafted and simplified and the application forms and explanatory notes were redesigned and standardised. Complaints in relation to the difficult nature of the text of previous years' schemes were taken on board. An emphasis was placed on ensuring that the 1993 schemes would eliminate many of the complexities evident in earlier schemes with the object of making the whole process as user friendly as possible.
The 1993 application form was designed with the object of ensuring that a single fully completed application from a person would suffice for all three schemes.
The 1993 reforms which I have just outlined were carried out after detailed consultation with the vocational education committees and the local authorities. This type of process is by its nature time-consuming, but my Department did everything possible to have the new 1993 schemes available to students as soon as possible. The fact that the relevant information was not available until August is an indication of the extremely cumbersome nature of the present system.
I would now like to advert to those wider organisational problems in the administration of the schemes of student support. Currently, in addition to my Department there are three sets of agencies involved in delivering the third level grants system. They are the local authorities who are statutorily entrusted with the administration of the higher education grants scheme, the vocational education committees who administer the vocational education committee scholarships scheme and do the means testing for both that scheme and the ESF maintenance grants scheme and the regional technical colleges and the Dublin Institute of Technology who make the maintenance payments under the ESF maintenance grants scheme.
As I previously stated in this House the need for simpler and more efficient organisational arrangements for the delivery of student support has been a constant theme in representations to me, and I am well aware of the difficulties and the frustration being experienced by students and parents.
I am committed to urgent action in this area. Not only must the general terms and conditions of the schemes be improved — much has already been achieved in that regard — but their actual delivery has also to be streamlined.
In March 1993 I set up an expert advisory group on third level student support with a following terms of reference: (a) to recommend appropriate criteria for assessment of eligibility on grounds of means, with reference to equity and the financial capacity of parents and applicants. In so doing the group would examine the application of the criteria for assessment of eligibility on grounds of means in the existing third level student support schemes; (b) to examine and make recommendations for the most effective and efficient organisational arrangements for the administration of the schemes, including rationalisation of the existing schemes.
In preparing its report the group worked closely with and drew on the expertise of Department officials and invited submissions from all interested parties.
I received the report of the expert advisory group a few weeks ago. I am giving very careful consideration to the detailed findings and recommendations and I expect to be in a position to publish the report in February next, as well as to set out my intentions with regard to its conclusions and recommendations.
In that regard I hope to be in a position to address shortcomings in the administrative arrangements which continue to be a source of irritation and complaint. In particular I have in mind the existence of three separate schemes with a considerable degree of overlap, the multiplicity of agencies involved in administering the system, late issue of the specimen schemes which creates difficulties later on in relation to processing applications, advising students of their eligibility and making grant payments in good time and the unsatisfactory appeals system. My major priority for 1994 in relation to administrative arrangements will be to ensure that the specimen scheme and related documentation issue on or before 1 May to ensure a more timely and enhanced service is made available for students and that grant payments, as a result, will issue in good time.
I have attempted in the debate on this motion to outline the major improvements that have been made in third level student support over the last 20 years and more particularly in recent years. I am aware of the shortcomings that still exist and am committed to address these, drawing upon the findings and recommendations of the expert advisory group report.
I thank Deputy Higgins for putting down a motion which is of relevance to the House and to all who are involved in local authorities and vocational education committees. I welcome the remarks made by the Minister and her tracing of the genesis of the present cumbersome system, indicating the various ad hoc developments that took place over the last 20 years and the various sources of funding, not just from the Exchequer but ESF funding. Third level education in the past was largely in universities but has moved into regional colleges, the Dublin Institute of Technology, DCU and LCU which have become universities. The Minister outlined all the developments in that area and the agencies, including the local authorities and vocational education committee's which have been established to deal with scholarships and higher education grants. It is a cumbersome system and the Minister's run-down of the manner in which it has developed during the past 20 years or so is welcome. I particularly welcome the fact that she proposes to examine the recommendations of the expert advisory group which she set up in March with the intention of putting the scheme into operation at the earlier date of 1 May.
I am sure Members read the 1991 OECD report which indicated that until recently Ireland had been behind its European partners in regard to the provision of educational facilities. We are at the bottom of the list in regard to pupilteacher ratio, Turkey being the only country below us. That matter is being addressed by the Government specifically at primary level where the school population is on the decrease but, instead of saving those resources for other areas they will be ploughed into improving the pupil-teacher ratio in disadvantaged areas. Comparatively speaking, we have a better resourced system than many European countries in respect of third level education. Obviously, any Government concerned about the welfare of its people must start at the bottom and ensure that resources are provided first in disadvantaged areas at primary and secondary levels.
The developments that took place in 1992 are welcome, for example, the extension of third level grants to mature students. The increase in eligibility levels from £11,000 to £15,000 per annum, a 40 per cent increase, represents a major development. Nevertheless, a large number of middle class parents in the £15,000 to £25,000 per annum bracket who are reaching the higher earning levels of their careers and may have a number of children at third level but lose out because of the £15,000 cut-off point. I would like the Minister to examine those categories, some of whom were mentioned by Deputy Ahern, for example, teachers, gardaí, civil servants and so on. The Minister should increase the lower eligibility level from £15,000 to, say, £20,000 on a phased basis during the term of office of this Government and she should give priority to that.
I cannot accept the motion as tabled. The first portion is simplistic — I do not mean that in a derogatory sense. In my vocational education committee area, out of a total of 656 applicants, 381 ESF grants and 36 scholarships were awarded this year. Of those applicants 141 were not eligible for various reasons; 24 of those eligible cancelled and 74 are outstanding because we are awaiting replies to queries. Within a few days of the information being received by the vocational education committee or the local authority the money is sent out, but we have not received that information. Therefore, we could not proceed along the lines of this proposal and pay all outstanding grants immediately. The second portion in regard to forms being made available to applicants at the end of April or the beginning of May is relevant and the Minister agreed to that.
Many proposals must be dealt with in the context of the expert advisory group. First, we must phase in an increase in the eligibility level from £15,000 even though we increased it by 40 per cent last year. Second, we must consolidate the present system. The Minister indicated how the various agencies, county councils, city councils, the vocational education committees, the Dublin Institute of Technology, the regional technical colleges and the Department of Education, have a role to play. We have consolidated our CAO and CAS system in regard to access to third level institutions. Likewise, we must consolidate our system for processing scholarships and higher education and ESF grants in a much more expeditious manner. Third, we must examine the ESF maintenance funds. A student attending college in Northern Ireland is covered, but a student attending college in England can receive only the tuition fee, not maintenance funding. There should be a reciprocal arrangement with our European colleagues, not only with Northern Ireland.
There are many comments I would like to make about the system if I had time. I am delighted the findings of the expert advisory group are being examined by the Minister. She has given us an indication of the direction she is heading and I am satisfied we will have a streamlined system within a short time.
I congratulate the Minister on the detailed exposition of her attempts to reform and improve what most people admit is a cumbersome and inefficient system. She showed great frankness this evening in accepting the difficulties experienced by people during the past year, particularly in September and October, in regard to late grant payments and incredible bureaucracy. However, some of the difficulties in regard to local authority servicing of this area resulted from outstanding cutbacks under previous Governments and the difficulties associated with transferring from one funded scheme to another through the vocational education committee or ESF and into the university system.
I welcome the measures adopted by the Minister. She was in office only a few weeks when she set up the expert advisory group to advise on reform of the system, following which she increased the income eligibility and maximum tuition limits significantly to include a reasonable number of the working people, those referred to by Deputy Costello earning between £15,500 to £19,500 per annum. She also introduced a number of other measures in relation to mature students and lone parents. It will be a hallmark of this Minister's tenure in office that the central problem of education, that of access, will have been addressed. My colleague reiterated the necessity to intervene at pre-primary and primary levels where significant inequalities exist especially in areas of high unemployment. That was illustrated in the recent Combat Poverty Agency response to the Green Paper on Education.
During the Minister's term in office I ask her to examine the entire area of third level education. It grew up willynilly from a position 25 years ago when we had approximately 20,000 students and four or five colleges to a position now where it is the policy of my party to give every citizen access to third level education should they so desire. In such circumstances it is essential that we get the student support system right.
It is notable, for example, that one can go right through a street in many areas of Dublin city and county and not find a single third level student. This is unacceptable. The reason students fail to reach third level is that they fail at either primary or second level. The Minister was therefore right to make it a priority of the Government to intervene early to ensure that the children of the unemployed and the low paid will have equal access to third level education.
In conclusion, I echo the comment made by my colleague that when the advisory group reports in February the Minister should consider the possibility of streamlining the support system along the lines of the CAO-CAS, which appears to be working so well.
I am pleased to support the motion tabled by Deputy Higgins. There is an old phrase which soldiers are supposed to have used: "It is easy to sleep on another man's wound". This means, in effect, that if one does not experience the pain it is not real. That is the case in relation to the grants paid to qualifying students when commencing at college. This year, as in other years, many students have had to hang about and await the payment of their third level grant. Many have said: "So what, it is only a delay" but, as we have heard, it causes untold misery, disruption and cost. It also impoverishes and distracts students and, above all, indicates that students, the prime focus of the educational process, are regarded as being of minor importance. The fact it has happened before makes it worse because we are proving that we learn nothing from recent history.
This year, as in other years, few local authorities have provided students with the money they are entitled to receive at the start of term. If all students came from wealthy families who could support them easily this would not be a major issue; and if all students had private means or had the good fortune to secure well paid jobs during the summer — we know that is not the case — it would still be an issue but would not be the source of major hassle. In real life the majority of students do not come from wealthy families with money to burn. We do not have students who can draw on trust funds and the few thousand pounds saved from a summer job. The vast majority in third level education after a tough summer have no discretionary spending money in their pockets. They need the grant to be paid as early as possible, as soon as they register. When the grants are not paid they face problems that no student should have to face at the beginning of the academic year.
For a start they face uncertainty. For many of them this is the first time they have to come to terms with the reality of budgeting. It is at this time that they find that they do not have access to the money they are entitled to receive. This is not the right way to learn financial management. It is the education version of "live horse and you will get grass": live student and you will get grant when it suits the system, not the student, who is only a user of the system, which is much more important than human beings with needs.
The most obvious challenge that students face as the summer dies away into autumn is to find accommodation, which is not easy even if they have money in their pocket. When they do not have money in their pocket this is downright impossible. I am aware that some students when they find themselves in this position pass up good accommodation, as they wait for the grant to come through, which is taken by someone who is lucky enough to have the money to cover the sizeable deposit requested. Some students have to take out bank loans and find themselves coping with interest payments that they never thought they would have to cope with so soon. We are all aware of the difficulties students experience in this regard.
The position in 1993 is that students in the first stressful weeks of college are compelled by the State to attend college without money to which they are entitled. I would not have thought that a Labour Party Minister would have allowed this to happen because we knew what the Labour Party stood for when fighting the last election. Unfortunately, the message in more recent times has been different. Let me give a specific example.
The Progressive Democrats did not do too much about it when in Government.
I did not heckle the Deputy; he should please listen. In common with many other Deputies, I wrote to the Minister for Education, who has referred to this matter on foot of requests from various student organisations to raise this vexed issue. Let me make it clear that I do not think I was elected to do this. I take the view that if a person is entitled to something they should not have to rope in Opposition politicians to engage in special pleading on their behalf. However, like many other Deputies, if there is a problem I try to solve it. Therefore I sat down and put pen to paper to alert the Minister to this problem — I was not the only person to do so — in the expectation that I would receive a fast and effective reponse.
I must confess that I am a slow learner but I thought at the beginning of this year, when this Government took office with an overwhelming majority, that it would do things; that it was like a 600lb. gorilla with lots of energy and power, that while one could argue with such a gorilla, one had better stand out of its way when it got going. However, the other side is that it is well known that if one walks hand in hand with a gorilla, one will end up walking where he wants one to go. The point I am trying to make is that I am still waiting for this Government to get going, especially in the area of education, unfortunately, I have not seen the movement that I genuinely believed earlier this year I would have seen.
In my letter I drew the Minister's attention to the plight of students caused by this administrative hiccup — as someone said to me, one person's administrative hiccup is another person's double pneumonia. In due course I received a reply which was most unsatisfactory — everyone received the same letter — in which she said that in preparing the 1993 schemes her Department had carried out a thorough review of all documentation. That is a relief; it would have been shallow and short-sighted to deal with the financial problems only. The Minister explained that this thorough review covered the application form and the explanatory notes. Could one carry out a thorough review without looking at the application form and the explanatory notes? This was not done for pleasure, as the Minister also informed me in her reply to my letter, but the objective was to make the process as user friendly as possible.
I have to hand it to the Minister. When she wants to carry out a review it will be thorough and will have a purpose. In this case the purpose was to make the system more user friendly. Because the Department follows through on reviews, action was taken. The schemes were redrafted and simplified; the application form and the explanatory notes were redesigned and standardised. This was a relief, or was it? As Deputy Higgins said, there is a jungle of red tape still in existence. I am not being facetious. The Minister informed us that these improvements were welcomed by the local authorities and the vocational education committees and that students viewed them in a positive light.
This might give the innocent bystander the impression that something momentous was happening but this is a passing impression. The Minister accepts that the grants process is cumbersome and that the arrangements for the making of grant payments to students are less than satisfactory. What did she decide to do? She said that she was committed to achieving improvements in the student grant process and that the terms of reference of the expert advisory group on third level student support which she set up earlier this year included the making of recommendations for the most effective and efficient organisational arrangements for the administration of the scheme, including the rationalisation of existing schemes.
When I wrote to the Minister she was looking forward to receiving the advisory group's recommendations. We heard this evening that she has received them. While all that was going on the students went to college and tried to survive their initial cash flow crisis. There are a few sharp points to all of this. I am not, by nature, an adversarial politician. I do not take pleasure in singling the Minister out and criticising actions or inaction on her part. However, this is an area where she should rightly be criticised by the Opposition. In the beginning I had a great belief in this Minister. My own background is in education, and the early indications were that she did not come to the job with a solidified set of convictions that she wanted to apply to every issue. I believed that she was prepared to consult, to listen and to create openings for discussion. This was all very helpful until it went on and on. There is a time for listening and a time for policy-making. There is a time for discussion and a time for action. The Minister needs to act. It is fair to ask if this Minister has a vision for education, if she has a sense of direction, or is there to be a continuum of discussing green papers, discussion fora and advisory groups?
While all this consultative process was going on, action could and should have been taken in quite simple ways. For example, one thing the Minister could have done to ensure that students got their grants on time was to make the grant application forms available to applicants earlier. Deputy Higgins suggested that the forms be made available in April. That is a sane suggestion and the Minister agrees with that now. She could go a step further and issue them at the same time as the CAO forms and that would lead to rationalisation of the process.
She is going to do it.
Local authorities were blamed for the late payment of grants. The volume of new grant applications has grown enormously over the last number of years; it has trebled in the greater Dublin area. In fairness to the local authorities, it should be stated that there are factors which have contributed to the delays in the processing of grants.
In 1993 the Department of Education issued the higher education grant scheme and details of maintenance grant level renewals for existing students on the latest date ever in any year, 16 August, so work could not start on the processing of the grants. In 1992 the then Minister for Education extended the closing date for receipt of applications from 31 August to 14 September and this was done without any consultation with local authorities. In 1993 the Minister extended the closing date for applications to 6 September. Despite the short time available, local authorities were either unwilling or unable to divert sufficient staff to deal with the workload as quickly as was necessary. For some authorities it was well nigh impossible. The end result was that students did not receive their entitlements at the beginning of the term when they needed them.
It was not necessary for an advisory group to tell anybody what had gone wrong there. I suggest that the Minister avoided a straightforward remedy. I do not know how she could justify waiting for an advisory group's recommendation on that aspect of grant aid. She has stressed the urgency of action and I believe her good intent in that regard. However, she now tells us she has had the report of the advisory group for weeks and she expects to publish it in February. This is not action — it is inaction.
I will wait to see what happens, but, going on the time-scale we have had to date, I have no great confidence in the Minister. Maybe I should wait and see, but for many students it is far too late. They waited and waited, but they did not get their grants on time.
We should deal with the serious inadequacies in the existing third level grant scheme. Children in the PAYE sector in particular are seriously discriminated against under the present system. Comprehensive reform of the third level grant system would mean greater social equity in the distribution of grants and a fairer distribution of grants in terms of occupational status of families. There should be equity and transparency in the operation of the third level grant scheme. Assets should be taken into account when determining income and eligibility for grants. Why not examine the idea that net rather than gross income be taken into account?
When we were in Government we were successful in helping to have the eligibility ceiling for third level grants raised and that resulted in a 21.5 per cent increase in the number of students eligible. It brought the number of qualifying students up from about 15,200 to about 18,500. It was a step forward but it does not tackle the fundamental discrimination against the PAYE sector whose income is an open book to the authorities. That is not the case for other sectors who get a disproportionate share of third level grants for their sons and daughters. My colleague, Deputy Quill, would agree with me when I say that parents who engage in creative accounting have, in the past, managed to establish eligibility for their children to get to third level education whereas children of people in the PAYE sector — teachers, nurses, gardaí and civil servants — have not had that advantage. Low-income families are excluded from third level education because the income thresholds are too low and this certainly should be addressed.
It is interesting to note the socioeconomic disadvantages. I agree with Deputies who said there should be greater openness and greater access to third level education. It is interesting that at a recent conference in Ballymun the initial success of three pilot projects for expanding the involvement of what were described as working class students in third level education is seen as boosting the likelihood of direct Government funding for such programmes. It is extraordinary that direct-intervention schemes seem to be a way of enabling students to attend our regional technical colleges, but is it not incredible that these are the lengths we have to go in order to achieve such a breakthrough?
What we are discussing is one relatively small issue, except for the thousands of young people at a pivotal time in their lives. What we are addressing is so obvious, so unfair and unjust and so easily solved that, on its own, it is an indictment of the Government's approach to education. This approach kowtows to the interest bodies and consults with them but it regards the consumer, the student, as little more than an irritant. One gets the feeling that the powers that be think that education would be grand if one did not have to deal with actual students. Students and the families they come from are the central issue in education and the Government would do well to remember that.
(Carlow-Kilkenny): A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, cuirim fáilte roimh an tairiscint seo atá os ár gcomhair anocht mar tá sé riachanach agus tábhachtach. Tá sé riachtanach ó thaobh na micléinn atá ag feitheamh le hairgead agus freisin ba chóir go mbeadh córas againn faoina mbeadh na foirmeacha istigh i Mí Aibréan faoi mar a mhol Deputy Higgins anseo chun deis níos fearr a thabhairt do na micléinn.
This is a simple motion. I regret that this evening the Minister ended by saying: "I have attempted in my contribution to the debate on this motion to outline the major improvements that have been made in third level student support over the last 20 years and, more particularly, in recent years."
Debate adjourned.